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Add an option to mark store as an unfavorite or something similar
Hello,
I have recently stumbled upon a seller again who has difficulties in shipping to my country or something. Well, doesn't matter the reason actually - may it be price related or what ever, BUT I'd like to see or separate those stores where I would not like to buy anything (similar marking like the favorite stores has for example). Would there be an option?
I did a quick mocup of one example:
And my head isn't a trashbin and it doesn't hold information as well as it used to so I don't remember those stores any more and I can't add a comment to a specific store except for a specific order and that does not pop up for me to see during the order process...
With regards,
I have recently stumbled upon a seller again who has difficulties in shipping to my country or something. Well, doesn't matter the reason actually - may it be price related or what ever, BUT I'd like to see or separate those stores where I would not like to buy anything (similar marking like the favorite stores has for example). Would there be an option?
I did a quick mocup of one example:
And my head isn't a trashbin and it doesn't hold information as well as it used to so I don't remember those stores any more and I can't add a comment to a specific store except for a specific order and that does not pop up for me to see during the order process...
With regards,
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So upvoted
I do believe that the "favorite" version is not shown to the owner of a store either !?
EDIT: Oh and for a UI it could be a thumbs down icon !?
@Lawrence , browsing multiple pages/clicks to open the user isn't intuitive as I would like as an user. I understand your point about having a negative sign next to a store, but as Malnaborg stated - isn't that only visible for the user and not publicly known? I mean - the stores do not know that they are marked as favorite now - or do they?
As for the user interface... Not to hurt anyones feelings, but we could have all the stores by default be with a thumbs up icon (yellow) and then users could simply remove that thumbs up icon (like deactivating or de-favoriting) a store. That would kind of remove the written in negativity.
But making it possible for store owners to see, then that would be up for a debate. I would not like the store owners to know about that, because sometimes it may cause misunderstanding. If something was absolutely wrong with the store, then they would get a negative feedback. But for me, it may be a simple way of packing for example that I would not like personally (too much ducktape for example
@sotwuser , favorite store is a bit different thing. There are stores, which leave very good impression for me and some stores that I would prefer to order first and those are those favorite stores. I do buy from other stores as well, but first - I choose my favorite stores. Having all stores set as favorite by default would kind of render this favorite thing in it's current charm pointless.
This is purely for the buyer's private view. Nothing fancy, nothing big. Just a simply icon to show.
As sotwuser writes, it is a simple option that is needed. So a dropdown menu with 2 icons, star and finger pointing down could also work. What is important is the simplicity.
If there are stores from which you do not want to order, what's the point of having them show up *at all* in any search results?
So you are going through your lists and you click the "buy" button and there are three stores you want "disliked" and there they sit in the results list with a "thumbs down" marker.
What's the point? If you don't want to order from them, then eliminate them completely from the results. Pretty sure it's trivial from a programming standpoint to either "show the thumbs down icon" or "do not show the record". But showing the record with "thumbs down" is just cognitive noise that you have to continue to contend with.
What I was suggesting, though not fleshed out, was more granular control of the returned results on any of your searches. This scheme could possibly offer a greater number of options on what the search results look like. --> Don't show, show but flag, show in "buy" results, don't show in "magic list" etc. I'm not necessarily suggesting that this level of control actually be implemented, but it allows for the possibility. Also forcing you to a second page of controls would eliminate or reduce the chances of inadvertent "unclicking" of the "thumbs down" control if it appeared on the store page. And, somewhere down the line, circumstances may be such that you change your mind about "disliking" and want to undo that marker. The second page would allow you to write yourself a note about why the store was disliked or whatever. Maybe this page is combined with the "favored" thing. Anyway. I know this is more than what you were asking for, but hopefully this shines a bit of light on my reasoning.
Can you explain the benefit to you of still seeing the stores(s) show up in the results list with a "dislike" flag? I certainly have a handful of stores that for whatever reasons I'm not going to business with, but they *always* show up in the results as having parts I want. My preference would be to just never see them in the list. If the store is listed with a "dislike" flag… processing that is one cognitive point I could eliminate by the store simply not being in the list.
If for whatever reason you end up on a store page for a store that is disliked…well, come to think of it, every store page…there is the additional need to process whether the "like" flag is "up" or "down". And if the "like" flag is located below the fold, then there is additional clicking and scrolling involved, so efficiency which I think you are trying to achieve actually would be turning into inefficiency.
Option nr. 2, where I would pay attention to it, is when I have 100+ lots or just a bigger order that I would like to make, then the shipping cost is something to concider and then I do it the opposite way that I take a screenshot of the top stores with the most items available, and then I tick/mark those stores one-by-one to see if those top stores could handle my full order.
Those are the both scenarios, where, for me, that thumbs down icon would come to play. I wouldn't say that this thumbs down store would be something that I would definitely would avoid since the reasons might be very different, why I have that thumbs down thing. Right now I have few stores in my "list" that I would avoid ordering from, but when there is a bigger quantity, then those downsides overweight the price win for example. Well, at least with that thumbs down icon I am able to check the last order and that last order notes, why I gave it a thumbs down.
Ouh, a good example is regarding the condition of parts. While I don't mind the quality of the parts that often that much, then all the parts in my wishlists are with any condition and one stores acceptable condition may be absolutely different from the other. I wouldn't necesseraly avoid that store that sells acceptable parts which look like Lego and glutch like Lego, but are otherwise cracked, discolored, bent or chewed, but I would like to know that I need to pay attention to it (or not).
And as Lawrence had concernes about the dislike button, which I fully understand, causing or having a bit of like a negative taste to it, then having all stores with thumbs up icon by default, then this would be quite a good thing.
For me a simple, thumbs down icon would work. Or as mentioned, all stores have a thumb up sign for starters. But then if you "untick" the thumb, that stores will not be included in searches for wishlist for instance.
A note box could also help, but not in the way i originally thought. But i like the talk about this, and all suggestions could be in the mix :-)
How it is:
After completing an order and I find something unpleasant, BUT NOT dealbreaking (for me), I leave a comment to the order. So next time, when I'm forming a list with wishlist magic, then I need to check the selected stores order history (if available in my order history) for comments from my last order (if applicable) for plausable unpleasant situations.
How it would be:
After completing an order and I find something unpleasant, BUT NOT dealbreaking (for me), I will de-select the thumbs up icon next to the store contact button. So next time, when I'm forming a list with wishlist magic, then I know that stores without the thumbs up icon had some unpleasant things and if I find it possible, then I would avoid ordering from those store (but I still see them in the wishlist magic list).
That would also work, if it would be possible to leave a note to THE STORE and not to the member and then there would be some exclamation mark or something in the wishlist magic list next to the store name (like the star icon for favorite stores), so I would know to check my comments about that store, but I find it more intuitive to just have a simple icon, because this comment thing might get too clumsy and I would still have to open the store page to see the comment. With the "thumbs up" icon removed, I know that I have some ... umm ... unpleasant situations in the past and I could simply avoid it and just untick the store in the wishilist magic list without the need to open up the store page or last order to check anything.
@mfav , the initial idea was a thumbs down icon as can be seen on the picture in my first post, but I fully get the point of Lawrence that this might leave a negative or discouraging idea to everyone involved (nowadays gen Z people are sometimes so easily offended), so this default thumbs up for everyone seems a better approach.
@Malnaborg , yeah, that would be a next step, but I understood from Lawrence that this would be a bit more difficult thing to implement. And for my current use-case, a 100% elimination from the wishlist magic list would not be the proper thing as I might still order from those stores, but I would be wary about plausable issues (personal so to say) with those stores where I have removed the thumbs up icon.
So far I have been able to filter quite well the stores with those few option (substitute variations, minimum order). A good option would be to filter out those stores with "no shipping available", but right now I can manage...
Also, a drop down menu would allow several options all the way from favorite to absolutely not.
Now getting the impression you want a ranking system.
I would not want to conflate stores where I have had good experiences with stores I haven’t done business with by giving everyone a universal thumbs up out of the gate.
To your point of unchecking the thumbs up, I would rather flag issues as opposed to unflag them as there are probably fewer with issues than without. If your magic page returns 20 stores and two are unmarked and 18 marked, it’s likely more difficult to find the unmarked ones. I’m thinking about this from a usability standpoint and not from a social acceptance standpoint. Your goal is to create an order, not placate emotionally sensitive sellers.
I’m also failing to see why your store ranking icon would be visible to anyone other than yourself, so kind of a moot point giving everyone a default thumbs up. The proposed thumbs up icon on the store page is simply acting as a mechanism to set a flag, and having thumbs up provides the sense that every store is good by default, where every store should be ranked unknown by default. That default thumbs up could give a false impression to a buyer that this is a good store as opposed to this is a button I can use to assign a ranking to this store.
1. Filtering out stores that you do not like and do not want to order.
2. Making it easier to distinguish stores which you would not prefer to order and avoid, if possible (what I am aiming for at the moment).
Just in case, a little bit more background to the topic from my point of view.
I have a separate list (something that point nr. 1 would solve), where are stores which I do not want to do business with.
Then there are the favorite stores that I always would choose first.
Now there are a lot of stores, which are inbetween those favorite and disliked stores. There are stores that I can' say that I wouldn't never order and then there are stores that would almost be my favorite ones, but are unable to do a simple thing by writing my phone number on the package (something that I always request, because this immensely speeds up the shipping for me - I get the package within a week, max two). And then there are stores, that do everything acceptably, but for some reason they are slow reacting, slow acting and slow shipping compared to others despite doing everything as requested. Then there are also stores that pack parts in a simple paper mail envelope without any bubblewrap and (but amazingly everything has been received intact). While those are stores that I would still order and not mark them as stores that I would necessarily avoid, I'd like to separate them somehow to know to order from them in case there is no other option...
Can you articulate a process for getting from any given page on the site to your desired end result of having an icon show up on the magic page?
• How would your settings be stored for retrieval and editing?
• How would you translate your existing "separate list" to something on the site that would be an adequate substitute for your existing list?
• From where and how would you access this content once it had been saved?
• Do you want an elaborate array of icons, e.g. preferred store: star icon, disliked store: red circle with slash icon, slow processing: turtle icon, packaging issue: box icon, etc.…or a simple array, e.g. thumbs up, thumbs down, question mark (for everything that is not either thumbs up or thumbs down)…a 4 or 5 star rating system?
Having 1 icon alone. The star that we have now, but for all stores being marked as in "all is favorite"
Then having the option to deselect the star, plus implement a "notes" section, where you privately could write in short, why it is not favorite any more.
That is a very minuscule version of this, and how i could see it implemented with as little work for Lawrence as possible.
As a metaphor: wiring in your house. You can put one light on a switch or ten lights on the same switch. But you have to decide which room the switch is in, which wall the switch is on, assign a breaker in the breaker box, get the power from the breaker box to the switch, figure out where in the room the lights are, get the electrician to install all that, and make sure the electric bill is paid. Then when you flip the switch the lights come on in the room. Those lights don't come on until a whole lot of other things are addressed and completed.
This feature will be a considerable amount of work for Lawrence, so the plan should be extremely well thought through before he starts.
- Can you articulate a process for getting from any given page on the site to your desired end result of having an icon show up on the magic page?
--- As I showed on the image in my initial post - a simple thumbs up/down icon to know that the store is not in an ignored list, but I would still order from it/still prefer not to order from it (depending on the icon if it is a thumbs up or down - the icon is still in discussion as I understand). And that icon would be displayed as is the favories star displayed next to the store name.
- How would your settings be stored for retrieval and editing?
--- Same way as is the current favorites icon.
- How would you translate your existing "separate list" to something on the site that would be an adequate substitute for your existing list?
--- This separate list that I have, is for stores that I would ignore absolutely. For that the initial post does not apply, but it would need a separate feature and I do not know how to do that. This is something that others have also requested - to be able to absolutely ignore and remove stores from magic list/catalogue cart and from everywhere. Right now I'm looking for an option to set besides the favorite button a middle step between neutral and favorite OR neutral and almost ignore.
- From where and how would you access this content once it had been saved?
--- Same way as I can view my favorite stores (may it be a separate tab or displayed with the favorites with a note if it is either a favorite or preferred/not preferred store (depending on the icon that will be used).
- Do you want an elaborate array of icons, e.g. preferred store: star icon, disliked store: red circle with slash icon, slow processing: turtle icon, packaging issue: box icon, etc.…or a simple array, e.g. thumbs up, thumbs down, question mark (for everything that is not either thumbs up or thumbs down)…a 4 or 5 star rating system?
--- That is up for debate, but your suggestions got me thinking that it may be a random selection overall. It should be doable (I think) that instead of this favorite star that we currently have, comes a dropdown list with a range of icons and how ever the user would prefer to use what ever icon, is up for the user themself. How the user defines the meaning of the icons, is fully up to the user.
@Malnaborg , this would still cause me to open up the store page in a separate tab or something. Ideally I would like to avoid this extra click and the need to write any comment, if I could simply solve this by having a dedicated icon for it in addition to (or instead of) the favorite icon.
True that it would be better than nothing, but if those favorite statuses would change, than this would cause another issue for me - I have a range of favorite stores already that I would like to keep as favorite (or star icon'ed).
>> Same way as is the current favorites icon.
The current favorites icon appears to simply reload the current page and change the favorites flag from ON to OFF (or OFF to ON). I'm thinking this is impractical for a number of reasons, one being that if a note needs to be attached (or edited) then what is now the "star" button needs to lead to a new page…where the star (or whatever icon) can be selected, the note attached, and the record saved. Potentially it could be programmed that when saving the settings you then go to the page from whence you came. Or maybe that is an option: save and stay on this page, save and return to previous page.
> From where and how would you access this content once it had been saved?
>> Same way as I can view my favorite stores (may it be a separate tab or displayed with the favorites with a note if it is either a favorite or preferred/not preferred store (depending on the icon that will be used).
So…the list on the favorites tab of the user profile page becomes a link or includes a link to the page noted above so you can edit the note?
Does the icon on the magic page link to the page to edit the note?
> Do you want an elaborate array of icons, e.g. preferred store: star icon, disliked store: red circle with slash icon, slow processing: turtle icon, packaging issue: box icon, etc.…or a simple array, e.g. thumbs up, thumbs down, question mark (for everything that is not either thumbs up or thumbs down)…a 4 or 5 star rating system?
>> That is up for debate, but your suggestions got me thinking that it may be a random selection overall. It should be doable (I think) that instead of this favorite star that we currently have, comes a dropdown list with a range of icons and how ever the user would prefer to use what ever icon, is up for the user themself. How the user defines the meaning of the icons, is fully up to the user.
While I can certainly understand the sentiment with user-defined meanings for random icons, I would argue that user-defined icons is problematic in multiple ways. First is how many icons are necessary? 3, 5, 10, 20? Cognitively once you get past five or six icons, and if the icons are not universally understood, people are going to have trouble remembering what is what. If the icons are a shamrock and a smiley face and a taco and other non-representative-of-the-situation icons you are asking for trouble. Also if you leave the site for six months and come back, then you have to remember what all these random icons meant six months ago and, if I'm understanding your initial point correctly, remembering unlabeled entities is why you're making this suggestion the first place. Thus my argument would be for a limited number of representative icons. Everybody REALLY needs to be on the same page with what the icons represent.
The next question that comes to mind is: what if you want to use more than one icon for a store? If the store is both slow to respond AND can't write the telephone number on the package AND uses too much or too little packaging BUT the parts are pristine…is one icon enough to describe your issues with that store? Or do you need a special "multiple issues" icon? If multiple icons are required for a store, then the popup to select an icon idea is likely not workable.
I'm assuming your selected icon replaces the star icon on the store page. In a scenario where you have two or more icons selected do they all show up on the store page? Will there be a space issue fitting six icons on the store or magic page?
2. As stated for first question - note is not necessary and no logging of notes is needed, if there would be a chance to have an additional icon or option to choose between the icons.
3. Yeah, no need to overload with myriad selection of icons. What is a correct amount - I have no answer to that. If they have to be universal (would make sense), then thumbs up, thumbs down, favorite star, circle with stripe, X - those would be universally recognized probably... Didn't come up with anything else on the go.
My initial idea was to have one more additonal icon to the cart and favorite star that we currently have here in BO. Thought that we might as well have a third one... But if it would be possible to implement the icon thing so that there would be a selection instead of the lone star icon, then that would do. And having more than three (MAYBE four) icons would most likely just make things too ... not sure of the term, but let's say "too colorful".
In my head, I already kind of already translated the meanings of those mentioned icons by me:
- FAVORITE star: Ideal and perfectly performing store
- Thumbs UP: Good store
- Thumbs DOWN: Not preferred store
- RED CIRCLE with stripe: Halt, check notes (or something)
- X: Ignore, avoid store at all costs.
Obviously, all that would be user specific and only known to the user themself, not to the store. No additional note section or something is necessary OR if deemed so, that there could be a simple note box on the stores page (like there is a unique note box related to an order), BUT those notes would not be linked in any way with the icons. That would be too complex to implement and over engineered in my opinion...
So those five solve your immediate needs, right?
Now, how do you explain these icons to users, how to use them, and what they’re for?
Yes, that selection of notes would solve my immideate needs and even a bit more with not just one additional icon, but having a selection of icons.
To make it easy, then instead of this simple favorite star icon, it would open up a list exactly like this with similar (better worded) explanations:
- FAVORITE: Perfect store;
- Thumbs UP: Good store;
- Thumbs DOWN: Not preferred store;
- ! mark: Halt, check notes (or something);
- RED CIRCLE: Ignore, avoid store.
This should be quite clear for users, I think.
I would rather stores marked as negative simply didn't show up in the search results. This could be managed through a tick box in settings - 'Eliminate least favourite stores from search results' or similar.